Rehearsal at Nuclear Plant For Terrorism, and the Public

Published: June 6, 2004

Correction Appended

WASHINGTON, June 5—
For two decades, the emergency drills at the Indian Point nuclear reactors have been meant to show federal regulators how plant operators and local public safety officials would cope with a radiation release that began with a pipe break or a pump failure. But the exercise planned for Tuesday has a different script and a different audience.

The hypothetical crisis that will be the subject of the drill is a terrorist attack. And this time, the targets of persuasion are not only the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but also the local governments and the public. The maneuvering and arguments began last month, and include efforts by plant opponents to contend that no plan could be adequate.

The terrorism scenario is a first for an emergency drill at Indian Point, the nuclear plant closest to ground zero and the nexus of much anxiety since the Sept. 11 attacks. Among the differences in this exercise is the participation of the F.B.I., said a spokesman for Entergy, which owns Indian Point, in Westchester County.

But the radiation releases that game planners are sure to throw into the script are not new, said an under secretary of homeland security, Michael D. Brown, and the issues of emergency planning at the plant, in Buchanan, about 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, are no different from those anywhere else. ''The fundamentals are exactly the same,'' he said in a telephone interview on Friday, during which he expressed confidence in the emergency preparations.

A spokesman for Entergy, Larry Gottlieb, made a related argument. ''It doesn't matter how the event starts; you have to deal with the emergency planning piece of it,'' he said.

Last Wednesday the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission made similar points when he came to Capitol Hill to meet for 90 minutes with three members of Congress from Westchester, in an effort to persuade them that the drill would be a real test for plant officials, with no warning of what to expect, and that Indian Point can withstand various kinds of attacks. The previous week, he met with county officials in New York.

The chairman, Nils J. Diaz, may not have been successful in his meeting with the members of Congress, but he may have won some points for trying. ''Chairman Diaz is to be commended for keeping members of Congress in the loop, but that alone doesn't make Indian Point any safer,'' said Representative Nita M. Lowey, a Westchester Democrat, in a statement. She has introduced legislation that makes local government approval of emergency plans a condition of operation.

Representative Eliot L. Engel, another Democrat who attended, said that he still has strong doubts about emergency preparedness, but that ''at least we had a frank discussion, and a chance to give our views.''

While Mr. Diaz was meeting with the members of Congress, in White Plains the critics of the Indian Point nuclear plant, including members of the environmental group Riverkeeper and the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, were holding a news conference to complain that authorities and Entergy were not prepared for a catastrophic release of radiation. They said they feared that Tuesday's drill would be too narrow in scope. Opponents have been arguing that the drill is mired in the old concept of accident, not the new reality of terrorism.

They said hospitals would have trouble decontaminating large numbers of people, schools were not prepared to evacuate children safely and keep track of them, and widespread panic would clog roadways with people ignoring orders to ''shelter in place'' at their homes or workplaces.

''Common sense underlies many of our concerns,'' said Kyle Rabin, policy analyst at Riverkeeper. ''Three years after 9/11, the Indian Point plan remains unworkable.''

But Mr. Gottlieb of Entergy said that the plan was always workable and is improving. For example, he said, in this year's drill, officials deciding whether and where to order evacuations will use a new computer program with a much more refined picture of how long it takes to move people. The program, which incorporates weather and other data, estimates an evacuation time of roughly double what was previously assumed.

The activities of most participants will, in fact, be similar to those in prior years. About 1,000 people, including plant personnel, local public officials, public safety workers and test evaluators, will handle tasks like watching the weather and calculating the spread of a hypothetical plume of radioactive material, calculating doses, and testing the ability to take radiation readings in the field, to erect traffic barriers and to coordinate with one another.

The maneuvering before the drill involves a plant for which, alone among the sites where nuclear power is generated, the federal government has ruled that there is ''reasonable assurance'' of adequate emergency preparedness without the concurrence of local government. Agreeing with antinuclear activists, the county executives for Westchester and for Rockland, Orange and Putnam Counties, which all have sections inside the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone, refused to sign off on their parts of the plan.

But, Mr. Brown, the homeland security under secretary, said, ''There is this technicality that we need their signature.'' The Federal Emergency Management Agency, now part of the Department of Homeland Security, is well acquainted with local capabilities, he said, adding, ''we don't need these technical things to know whether there is reasonable assurance or not.''

Photo: When Indian Point, the closest nuclear power plant to ground zero, trains for a terror attack this week, the F.B.I. will join the exercises. (Photo by Richard L. Harbus for The New York Times) Map of New York State highlighting Indian Point power plant: About 1,000 people will participate in an emergency drill on Tuesday at the Indian Point plant.

Correction: June 11, 2004, Friday An article on Sunday about an emergency drill at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y., misstated the position taken by Putnam County toward the emergency plan. The county did not refuse to endorse the plan; it supported it. An article on Wednesday about the drill misidentified the United States representative whose district includes the plant. She is Sue Kelly. (Nita M. Lowey's district includes parts of the evacuation zone, which covers areas within 10 miles of the plant.)